REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1202 OF 2003

State of Himachal Pradesh .....Appellant

Versus

Naresh Kumar @ Kaka & Ors. .....Respondents

J U D G M E N T

Dr. ARIJIT PASAYAT,J.

Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment of a Division Bench of the Himachal  

Pradesh  High  Court  directing  acquittal  of  the  respondents  who  faced  trial  of  alleged  

commission of offences punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 and 323 read  

with 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short, 'the IPC').

Learned Sessions Judge,  Hamirpur had found the present respondent-accused  

persons guilty and had convicted each one of them and sentenced to imprisonment for life  

and to pay fine of Rs.2000/- with default stipulation.  Learned Sessions Judge, however,  

acquitted the co-accused Sunil Kumar.

We need not deal with the factual aspects in detail because we find that the High  

Court has not analysed the evidence in detail.  It has come to certain abrupt conclusions  

about the prosecution version being not credible.  Since the High Court was upsetting a  

judgment of the Trial Court which has been rendered after analysing the evidence,  the  

casual manner in  which the  appeal  was  disposed of  allowing the  appeal filed by  the  

present  

Crl.A.No.1202/03 .... (contd.)

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respondent-accused persons was certainly not the proper course to be adopted.

Therefore, without expressing any opinion on merit, we set aside the impugned  

judgment and remit the matter to the High Court for fresh consideration.

Since the matter is pending since long, we request the High Court to explore the  

possibility of disposing of the appeal as early as practicable and preferably by the end of  

September 2009.

After the acquittal when this Court granted leave, the respondents were not in  

custody and bailable warrants were issued.  They will continue to be so till the disposal of  

the matter afresh by the High Court.

The appeal is allowed accordingly.

Sd/- ..........................J. [Dr. ARIJIT PASAYAT]

Sd/- ..........................J. [ASOK KUMAR GANGULY]

New Delhi. April 22, 2009.